The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5437, 30 August 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1878.

The Bribery Bill, introduced by the At-torney-General, and read a second time a few days since, does not appear to have attracted that attention in the colony which might have been expected. It will be remembered that Mr. Stout announced the coming measure in his Dunedin speech, what time he solemnly deplored the incapacity of man with an inch of whisky in him to exercise a sound judgment. “I think, therefore,” ho said, “ that the giving of a vote should be “ taken in as solemn a manner as wo take “ a trial in the Court, and that the people “ should be allowed to go to the poll' “ quietly, without cabs or canvassers “ after them, or public-houses to tempt “ them.” Very pretty sentiments those

but, unfortunately, not such as will carry weiglxt with the large majority of men of the world, who are too well a ware that in nine cases out of ton an increase of solemnity, not produced spontaneously by the intrinsic dignity of the proceedings, means simply an increase of hypocrisy. Mr. Sioux’s knowledge of humanity must be still boyish and superficial, or he ■ would not have failed to recognise that the utmost such a Bribery Bill could effect is a certain external cleansing of the electoral vessels, but that the whisky gauge would not really be lowered by the fraction of an inch by any possible legal provision. In a colony whore the laws in this direction are sot at nought day by day, as in the cases of the sale of liquor after hours and on Sunday, and the 'supply to persons already drunk—what sort of hope is there that a mere law of the same kind will be obeyed at an election? The effect will inevitably be to increase the profits of the few who already ignore the law, and further reduce the income of the many who try to obey it. These remarks have reference specially to clause 12(5 of the Electoral Bill, which provides for the closing of public-houses during the hours of the poll under a penalty of from fifty to a hundred pounds. The subject being cognate to those dealt with in the Bribery Bill, we prefer to discuss it in connection with them. The second new method which Mr. Stout proposes for the protection of the frail consciences of electors is found in clause 12 of the Bill, which enacts that any candidate or his agent providing or paying for vehicles for the conveyance of voters to the poll shall be deemed to have committed an illegal act, and shall forfeit the sum of five pounds to any person who shall sue for the same. Moreover, a voter who hires any kind of conveyance for the purpose of conveying any voter or voters to or from the poll is to be ipso facto disqualified from voting at the election, and to forfeit the sura of five pounds to any person who chooses to sue for it. In another clause the Bill contains an extension of clause 8 of the Goruipt Practices Prevention Act, 1858. By that measure it was forbidden to the committee of any candidate, under a penalty of five pounds, to hold meetings at any licensed public-house. Mr. Stout’s Bill reenacts this, and further provides that “the licensee of any public-house in “ which such meeting shall be held shall “ forfeit the sum of five pounds to any “ person who shall sue for the same, with “ full costs of suit.” Eor this alteration licensees will doubtless be duly grateful. The above are the principal points in which Mr. Stout’s Bill differs from the old law in regard to the definition of corrupt practices. The clauses defining bribery and treating, and that against cockades, banners, etc., are simply reenactments of the old law, with sufficient variation in the phraseology to give them some trifling appearance of originality. We do not find, however, that even in these clauses the change is an improvement,.as there is neither reduction of verbosity nor increase of lucidity. But with respect to the novelties described above, it is inconceivable to us that there should be more than one opinion, namely that, taken together, they constitute a gratuitous insult to the people of New Zealand, and a general aspersion of the character of the electors. It is remarkable that this insult should be offered and this aspersion made by a Government which, of all the Governments that have held office in New Zealand, can least fairly lay claim to political purism in any form. Only on the assumption that the electors of New Zealand are utterly venal, and unworthy of the franchise, could such ridiculous provisions find sufficient justification. Throughout the recess the doctrine was dinnecl into the ears of the colonists, that the whole manhood of Now Zealand was of so high a stamp as to be pre-eminently fitted, without any exception, to receive the fullest electoral privileges. But what does this Bill say ? Why, that the whole manhood of New Zealand is of so exceptionally low a type that it will sell itself for a ride in a coach, and may be debauched by the faint odour of a whisky bottle. It needs no demonstration to show that both these doctrinces are utterly incompatible, and the fact that they should both find exponents on the Ministerial benches affords yet another instance of how the demagogic fire and the pseudo-philosophic water are there “in ruin reconciled.” In ruin, we say, because it is such meddlesome, prudish, legislation as is proposed in this Bill that tends to undermine a people’s self-respect and self-dependence more than defeats in the field, more than any conceivable instrument of oppression. Unnecessary restrictions imposed upon the people in the people’s name are a more dangerous form of oppression than any moderate tutelage by an aristocracy. The latter keeps alive the spirit of independence by theopposition and the soreness it creates ; the former constitute a form of tyranny disguised as liberty, which, because so insidiously disguised, leads people to think it good and to hold the restrictions desirable. Thus, their selfreliance is destroyed, and they come to doubt their own integrity except in the presence of policemen or of official spies. Such we say unhesitatingly is the tendency of the legislation which Mr. Stout proposes for securing the purity of elections. The most ludicrous part of the proposals, to those who have observed how the Attorney-General delights to quote Mill and Spencer and company, is that this Bill effectively reveals to what very , slight purpose he has studied the doctrines of Spencer. IE there is one modern fallacy which the creator of scientific sociology combats more strenuously than another it is the popular reliance on the regulative machinery of Government, as though the latter could be better than the material from which it is derived and by which it is sustained. We would strongly recommend Mr. Stout to give his master another chance before he resolves to throw him overboard in this unceremonious manner, and strike out a new philosophy of retrogression for himself. As to the practical issue before Parliament, raised in those provisions upon which wo are commenting, it is hardly credible that the representatives of a democracy will do otherwise than resent the insulting reflections cast upon their constituents in the bare proposal of such a law. Of this wo aro confident, that should the Bill pass with those restrictive clauses unaltered, it will not survive the first general election conducted under it. Then will come the revulsion of feeling against this precious outcome of political Pharisaism, and there need be no fear but that, .when the reaction sets in, it will sweep away this Bill and kindred measures, and show how completely the confidence now apparently reposed in the authors of them has been undermined by their own action. The New Zealand people have not been sufficiently educated to the Government policy of tutelage, or sufficiently abased in self-respect, to submit tamely to such laws as this. Had Sir George Grey and Mr. Stout held rule for a few years the result might bo different. By that time they might, under the plea of broadening the foundations of freedom, and reforming popular morality, have effectively sapped popular independence. In this, as in so many other things, they blunder. There is room for thankfulness indeed that they have attempted openly to invade the people’s liberties somewhat prematurely, and, viewing the matter in this light, it is quite possible that no harm, but a great good may arise if the particular provisions of tho Bribery and Electoral Bills, to wliich wo have referred, pass into law just as as they stand.